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Byron
Mardenholde looks over a valley in which there is nestled a logging camp named Keele. Isolated, the community which operates the camp keeps itself to itself. There is little ambition for the dwindling locals beyond logging, and within that there is some freedom: There isn't any pressure to pursue prestige, no delirious dreams to distract. A man might be tempted to drink his life away in a cabin or consume the forest's mushrooms which, for a while, might make it seem like his world is bigger than Keele; he will be able to hack and chop no matter what. It is a lonely and insignificant mark on the map of Lordaeron. Indeed, the measure of a man in Keele is how deep his axe can cut into bark and the measure of a woman is how many loggers she can birth. The insular and almost incestuous relationships of the community means that their values have been kept in the vault of untouched antiquity. Social change, which perhaps the city endures every generation, did not seem to bother with Keele. A good son will wear his fathers clothes and take up his fathers axe. However the subject of this story, Byron, was not his father's son. Byron's father, Landon, had worked as a lumberjack originally, but had been promoted to count the amount of logs able to ship per week. The idea Landon had of a father son relationship was taking Byron away from his bed, in which he spent most of his time, and to his work. Landon was a popular man but he was constantly afraid of what his peers might think should they find out Byron was a fragile and queasy boy. A popular saying within Keele dictated that, '''A seed that falls from a strong tree will be a strong sapling'. ''The natives of Keele had sense enough to turn the phrase on its head. Once, even, Byron had the audacity to trip and fall in the audience of his father's loggers. What pain of embarrassment and shame his son had caused him. The boy received a due smacking for the show of human error. Thus, Landon prayed every night for his peers to ignore his boys' ailments and faults, and sometimes, for his boy to pass away silently. What Byron prayed for was more simple. He was a lean, pale and sickly boy and had shaggy long hair, which was unfashionable in Keele. Much to his loving mother's chagrin, his father would often comment that Byron appeared to be an elderly woman past her allotted day of death. It is understandable then that Byron prayed and ate to be much larger, like the other men of Keele. Unfortunately, a particular ailment caused Byron to reject his food and vomit bile. Such was the severity of this condition that his mother took him to visit the apothecary at Hearthglen, who suggested Byron line his stomach with milk and eat dairy products to soothe his agitated humors. Although Byron was happy to comply, Landon did not want the stigma of having a milk-drinker in his home; it was regarded as weak within the community. Landon's greatest fear materialized when, on his son's thirteenth birthday, Byron's back gave in when chopping wood. A curvature in the spine left the boy useless to the group and increased the ironic sting behind Landon's mocking. Byron's mother was considerate towards her son, but she did not pray for him. It was unclear to Byron whether her sympathy was born of her love for him or of her hatred of his father. If Byron had inherited anything from his father, it was his high capacity for embarrassment. His parents had crossed the line of the normal within Keele and had their marriage annulled, on the grounds that they were not married properly in the first place. Not only did this mean that Byron was the only child in the village to have parents who were not married, but also that Byron was technically a bastard. Perhaps then the feeling of shame was mutual between Byron and his father. Yet, if you had asked Byron of his childhood up until the point his parents separated, he was inclined to say happy. Byron had a fascination with the unusual idea of art, which his mother encouraged. When his mother left for Hearthglen to continue a short-lived affair with an apothecary there, Byron had to live with his father.